VALOR: Sa Manlulupig, Di Ka Pasisiil (To Invaders, You Shall Never Surrender) is an exhibit in honor of the generation of Filipino men and women who fought for liberty and freedom during the dark days of the Second World War.

The exhibit features portraits of surviving Filipino WWII veterans in the Philippines. This includes members of the Philippine Army and Constabulary who fought in the Battle of Bataan and survived the Death March, and civilians who joined the guerilla movement in the years of the Japanese occupation. These photographs were taken at their homes and at veteran gatherings in various places all over the country.

Presented with their portraits are the stories of these veterans – about surviving as a POW in Capas, about traveling across mountains to pick up ammunition and supplies from Allied submarines, about fighting outnumbered side-by-side with American comrades-in-arms, cheating death, staying alive, and never losing hope.

The exhibit hopes to create a record of the lives of these veterans for a new generation of Filipinos. To give faces to the names in books and on stone walls. Though these heroes finally pass quietly into the night, they shall never be forgotten.

Honolulu was chosen for the exhibit not only because of its large Filipino and veteran community, but also because of the link between Pearl Harbor and the Philippines: On December 8, 1941, right after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese came and dropped bombs on Camp John Hay in Baguio and Clark Field in Pampanga.

Also on show are wartime photos from the archives of Philippine Airlines. PAL put its own two aircraft and pilots into service during the war, evacuating American airmen to Australia until one was shot down in Mindanao and the other was destroyed in an air raid in Indonesia. As such, PAL is a war veteran in its own right. In 1946, PAL became the first Asian carrier to cross the Pacific when it brought 40 American GIs home to Oakland, California from Manila.